The rollercoaster ride of the world’s most reckless investor

For a few days in February 2000, Masayoshi Son was the richest person in the world. A risk-taker and showman, universally known as Masa, he had long been disdainful of Japan’s staid ‘salaryman’ business culture and was riding the wave of dot-com mania. His company SoftBank, founded in 1981, had bet big on the growth of online shopping. The bullish mood didn’t last, and Masa slunk away from the limelight – but only for a while. A techno-optimist, the now 67-year-old has repeatedly reinvented himself, urging doubters to see beyond the immediate: ‘You’re limiting your field of vision to 30 years… Start bold and think 300 years ahead.’

Masa’s greatest coup was with Alibaba, turning $20 million into more than $100 billion

According to Lionel Barber, who for 15 years edited the Financial Times, Masa is ‘probably the most powerful mogul of the 21st century who is not a household name’. At once a master of consumer psychology and a ‘trickster’ with a fondness for short cuts, Masa has proved a central character in an age of ‘hyper-globalisation’ that has seen money and ideas flow freely across the world. This detailed biography documents a career punctuated with attention-grabbing successes and abrupt reversals.

Barber has a journalist’s eye for his subject’s telling idiosyncrasies – a haste to board planes that means he sometimes embarks without socks or shoes, and a penchant for painting landscapes in the manner of Van Gogh. Of particular interest is Masa’s main home, a Batman-style lair in Tokyo. The decor highlights his fascination with Napoleon, but there are also numerous dog baskets for his salon of teacup poodles. Meanwhile, his office features a serene Japanese garden; guests who sit on an elevated platform are afforded a view that’s ‘not exactly trompe l’oeil’, yet alters their sense of space, exemplifying Masa’s bent for conjuring unusual perspectives.